


star-gazing, navel-gazing

by GryfoTheGreat



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-21
Updated: 2014-10-21
Packaged: 2018-02-21 23:55:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2486948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GryfoTheGreat/pseuds/GryfoTheGreat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Warden, Alistair, and late-night conversations. (Or: I accidentally make a Rivaini Human Noble and try to explain it away.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	star-gazing, navel-gazing

**Author's Note:**

> I thought there was a Human Commoner origin. Oh well. Set very shortly after Lothering.

In Alistair's humble opinion, the night is far too clear for sleeping. The stars sprawl indulgently across the heavens, pinpoints of the Maker's heavenly light. The nightmares don't come quite as often as they used to, but when they do, tracing the constellations helps subdue them, turns the guttural roars of a dragon into faraway echoes.

Leliana is fast asleep, snoring softly, as is Cousland's dog. Presumably Morrigan is too, in her little cranny, nestled away for everyone else. The dwarves shelter in their wagon, and he guesses that the Qunari is resting, if those of his kind do that.

But Cousland is awake. She's curled up on her side, but her eyes are wide open, gold catching the last flickers of the dying fire.

Those eyes land on him; he turns his gaze away quickly, but he knows he's been caught staring.

He doesn't say anything, but she (rather unexpectedly) breaks the silence. “I haven''t gotten nightmares since I was a child, you know.” He hears her bedroll rustling as she sits up. “It's... a little difficult to adjust.”

“You get used to them, eventually.” He keeps his tone gentle, as he would with a skittish horse.

She makes a non-committal noise and rises, stepping carefully past her hound to haul herself up onto the fallen tree at the northmen end of camp. Initially, he stays where is, but when she turns her head and cocks an eyebrow, he joins her.

“Nice night,” he says, internally cursing himself. Cousland does not appreciate small talk.

In any case, she ignores his comment.“It's strange, isn't it? No matter where you are in Ferelden, you always see the same stars. That one-” she points at it - “was shining very brightly at Ostagar, as I recall.”

“Do you see the ones beside it?” He draws a line I the air, connecting them. “In Redcliffe, they called that the Boat, but the Templars always called it the Girdle.”

“My mother called it the Smile.” She makes a face. “I suppose things do change as well.”

Her mother. She hasn't mentioned her family but in passing. If what little he knows of her is right, he suspects she is bottling it down, and ignoring it, focussing on the realities of a world awash with blood. “Do... do you miss her?” She doesn't reply immediately, and he begins to babble “Sorry, sorry, it isn't my place to ask...”

She halts him with an upheld hand. “Yes,” she eventually says, softly. “I've lost two mothers, now... You would think I'd be used to it.” He looks at her, confused; a small smile curls the corners of her lips, gone as quickly as it came. “We have more than one thing in common, Alistair.”

“We're both Wardens? We're both ridiculously attractive?” She snorts. “Nether of us have ever licked a lamppost in winter?”

“Speak for yourself,” she mumbles.

“Hmm... we're both... human?”

She gives him a look. “You're never going to figure it out, are you?”

“Probably not. A brother of the Chantry once told me I was more obtuse than an angle, whatever that means.”

“I'm a bastard, Alistair.”

His laughter chokes him; he sputters a bit, and Cousland whacks him helpfully on the back. “A... a bastard?” he eventually manages.

“Legitimised, of course, but I was born outside of wedlock. Have you ever heard of a Fereldan noble who wasn't milk-white?” He shakes his head. “Exactly. I am my father's daughter, but not my mother's.”

“But you...” On the rare occasions she has talked of Teyrna Cousland, it has been with great respect.

“She loved me as if I were her own - and she might as well have.”

“An explanation might be nice.” Really, though, does she owe him an explanation? The secret he's keeping from her is far bigger.

Cousland surprises him again, when she says “You know of my older brother?”

“Fergus?”

“I'm surprised you remembered – pleasantly, of course.” Her lips press together in what could almost be a smile. “He did everything arseways- even his birth. He came out the wrong way round, and almost killed my mother in the process. After such a traumatic birth, she was barren. My father did not mind, but she did – she always longed for more children. She became deeply depressed, and sent my father away from the castle, so that he would not remind her of her failures.”

“And he let her?” Alistair can't imagine any nobleman letting his wife send him away from his own lands; Arl Eamon certainly wouldn't stand for it.

“He loved her very deeply, even when it hurt to. He went away to visit old friends across the country, but in Denerim, his last stop...” She pauses. “He met a lady.”

“A lady of the night?”

“For all intents and purposes, yes. He had remained faithful all journey long, but this mysterious Rivaini woman broke his resolve. Of course, she fell with child, and my father's sense of duty prevailed on him to take her home to Highever and face his wife's wrath.”

“Not many men would have done that.” His own father, for one.

“My father was highly honourable.” Her voice swells with pride as she says it. “He was lucky, though, that his wife was not angry- in fact, she was ecstatic. All she wanted in life was a child; she did not care if I was not of her blood, and my birth mother, being young and without any means of her own, didn't care much either way. She took me in, and in return gave my mother a comfortable position as a maid to an arlessa well known for her kindness and generosity.”

“You were separated from your mother? Does that not seem cruel?” Alistair would trade anything for even a moment with his own mother; it is unthinkable that Cousland would agree to being parted from hers.

“My birth mother could not have cared for me at that time; she was much too busy caring for herself. I met her regularly, though, and I always spent my birthdays with her. I do not resent her for her youth. Besides, who would you prefer to grow up as; the beloved daughter of a lord, or as a bastard street child?”

“I see your point.”

“In any case, they raised me as their own, and for that I will be eternally grateful.” Her head droops. “And for that, I must avenge them.” Her voice breaks, slightly, and he hears the wet rasp of tears in her breath.

Awkwardly, he slings an arm across her shoulders; she leans into him slightly, but no tears fall. He wonders at her sheer mental fortitude; Maker knows that if he were in her boots he'd be blubbering like a baby.

“The time for tears is not now,” she says finally, once she is back in complete control of her emotions.

“Thank you for telling me.” He removes his arm carefully.

“I felt that I had to, after you told me so much.”

“And the markings...?” Her face is clear of them now, but before battle she draws intricate patterns around her eyes, inky black and as intimidating as an ogre. She looks different without them; younger, gentler.

She fixes him with her clear gaze. “The time for that is not now, either.” She softens the sentence with a smile that says _“Maybe later.”_

He snorts, and she elbows him; he falls off the tree and pulls her with him. A brief scuffle ensues, only stopped by the intervention of her mabari, especially his tongue.

When they return to their respective bedrolls, he listens; after a few minutes, her breathing slows down into the rhythm of sleep. Only then those he close his eyes and drift off.

That night, the nightmares stay away.

 


End file.
